


you make me feel like i'm livin' a teenage dream

by birdbox (Bella_Barbaric)



Series: two worlds colliding [7]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Teachers, F/M, killy is infatuated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-09 01:13:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1963407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bella_Barbaric/pseuds/birdbox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>and I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you.</i>
</p><p>Three quarters of the way through, there's a knock on the door and an unfamiliar blonde head pokes around it. He knows every face in the school by this point, so he puts two and two together rather quickly and realises this must be the new English teacher. She stands in the doorway, with an apologetic smile turning up the corners of her lips slightly. The thick blonde waves of her long hair are gathered over one shoulder, and she carries a few textbooks in her arms.</p><p>“Sorry to interrupt, sir,” she says and even though he knows she's American her accent still half surprises him. “Could you point me in the direction of-” she briefly checks her timetable resting on top of her books “-room 3.04?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	you make me feel like i'm livin' a teenage dream

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the British education system because yours truly is a recent alumnus of said system and can write about it fairly confidently.

The school is abuzz with excitement when Killian gets in after half term break due to the arrival of, he overhears whilst walking to his classroom, a new English teacher all the way from America. Half the male student body is already fantasising about her and Killian feels sorry for her. Female teachers have it a lot harder than male teachers in terms of negotiating the minefield of student opinion; either they’re an object of desire or scorn; a sexpot or a bitch. Male teachers were given room on the middle ground far more often.

Killian hasn’t met her yet—he tends to avoid staff briefing (where she would have been introduced) like the plague unless it’s absolutely necessary that he attend because of his vociferous dislike of the head, Robert Gold, and his droning monologues. Killian loves his job and the school, the kids are great and the staff are amazing, but he and the head never meshed well. It’s a wonder he even got past the job interview but he suspects it was the influence of the wider senior management and his admittedly impressive CV that cinched it for him. For the most part he and Gold avoid each other, maintaining a façade of professionalism in front of the students so as not to undermine staff authority as a whole; the only thing he and Gold have in common is dedication to their respective jobs, after all.

But that small issue aside, Killian loves his job. His mother was a teaching assistant and worked hard to support him and his brother when his waste-of-space father left them and he’d always wanted to follow her into the teaching profession. Though it’s sometimes a stressful job, particularly since he chose to work in a secondary school, there isn’t a greater joy in the world than knowing what you say to a group of kids might stay with them as they grow up. Killian knows there are too many teachers who are in it for the good holidays and decent pay at the end of the months with little regard for being an educator, but he can confidently he’s not one of them. He’s in the school building earlier than most and goes home later than everyone.

It’s a little pathetic really and his non-teacher friends berate him constantly for his alarming lack of social life, but he eats, sleeps and breathes teaching.

It’s the term before exam season starts, so Killian’s life will get progressively busier and busier, making sure GCSE and A-level coursework is progressing at a reasonable rate (the dreaded time for all teachers was early May when coursework deadlines approached and exams loomed) and as such he spends his second lesson that day catching up with his year elevens and reading through their drafts -and in some cases, giving some of them a kick up the backside to get started on it.

Three quarters of the way through, there’s a knock on the door and an unfamiliar blonde head pokes around it. He knows every face in the school by this point, so he puts two and two together rather quickly and realises this must be the new English teacher. She stands in the doorway, with an apologetic smile turning up the corners of her lips slightly. The thick blonde waves of her long hair are gathered over one shoulder, and she carries a few textbooks in her arms.

“Sorry to interrupt, sir,” she says and even though he knows she’s American her accent still half surprises him. “Could you point me in the direction of-” she briefly checks her timetable resting on top of her books “-room 3.04?”

Killian realises he’s staring, mouth open a little, a second too late to stop her and indeed the whole class staring at him expectantly for his answer. He quickly snaps himself out of the daze to a couple of snickers from his students. “Er, yeah, yeah, of course.” He lifts himself up from where he was kneeling on the floor next to a student’s desk. He nods at Robin, his teaching assistant, to keep an eye on them. “I can trust you all to be good for a few minutes, yes?” he addresses the class as he walks over to the door, not waiting for a response.

“Sorry,” she says again as he shuts the door behind him. “I completely forgot to ask for a map when I arrived, like an idiot. I’m Emma Swan, by the way. We- haven’t met.”

He takes her outstretched hand and shakes it. He smiles warmly. “Don’t worry about it, we’ve all been there. Killian Jones.” Up close, her wide green eyes are kind of entrancing and there’s a second where he loses his train of thought completely. She’s still waiting expectantly to be told where 3.04 is and he must look like a total fool, he thinks, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks when he collects himself. “It’s on the other side of this floor in the corner and it’s thelast door on the right.”

Killian starts walking her to it without thought. “American schools aren’t laid out like this, not used to the layout, I guess,” she says and she manages to sound almost self-deprecating.

“It’s well known that British architects have a thing against logic,” Killian tells her. The school moved into a new space-age building almost a year ago and it’s been half-impressing and half-confusing visitors and newcomers ever since.

Emma laughs. “That’ll be why then.”

“So, what part of America are you from?” 

“Little town that no one has ever heard of in Maine called Storybrooke. Well, that’s where my parents live—I’ve sort of lived all over.”

“What made you decide to cross the pond?” Killian kicks himself for making it sound like he’s interviewing her, but thankfully she doesn’t seem to mind too much.

“I prefer the education system over here,” she explains, one hand going up to push a lock of silky-looking hair behind her ear. “And I wanted a change of scenery. If it were up to my parents, I’d be working at Storybrooke’s tiny elementary school for the rest of my life alongside my mom but I think they knew I wanted to go elsewhere. I just don’t think 3000 miles away was quite what they had in mind!”

Killian laughs with her, eyes catching on the barely perceptible dimples in her cheeks when she smiles before cursing himself—he’s no better than the teenage boys, apparently. “I’m guessing this is your first lesson then?”

“Yeah, I was doing the boring administrative stuff this morning. It’s the year 13 English group,” she tells him. “Might be a bit strange for them having me replace their old teacher. The GCSE syllabus is closer to what I’m used to but the A level work is still pretty new to me. I’ve tried to familiarise myself as much as I can with their exam and coursework material but I just hope I don’t mess it up for them.”

“You’ll be fine. The sixth form are an intelligent bunch anyway and the English department will support you,” Killian reassures her, then adds as an afterthought. “If you have any problems, let me know and I can talk to the head of English for you… if you want, I mean. Might be less awkward coming from another head of department.”

He’s quite friendly with the head of the English department, Belle French, despite the fact she’s the long term partner of the head. He also knows she’s good at managing the staff and would be happy to support Emma if she felt like she needed it. Emma smiles gratefully and, it seems, surprised by the offer. “Thanks. I’ll definitely bear that in mind.”

They’re approaching 3.04 now, the yellow numbers on the door announcing it as such. Killian finds himself wishing the walk were slightly longer and gives himself a good hard mental slap for the thought—he’s infatuated already it seems. If they were both about fifteen years younger it’d be a literal cliché, a school boy walking his crush to class. Perhaps he should have offered to carry her books for her too and thus completed the archetypal teen movie scene.

Emma looks from the door of 3.04 over to his classroom, slightly perplexed. She eventually says, “You know, you didn’t have to walk me over here. I can see your classroom from here.”

Killian shifts his weight from one foot to the other awkwardly outside her classroom while she unlocks it. “No… I- I didn’t, did I?” he says, feeling like a prize idiot, because he can’t think of anything else to say.  _This is so bad_ , he thinks desperately. He’s known her all of ten minutes and he’s already tripping over himself to be around her.

Emma looks at him for an achingly long minute then something apparently clicks in her head and she smiles, surprised and amused leaving him to wonder what the hell she was thinking about him. Killian just swallows so loudly that he feels like she must be able to hear it. Emma pushes the door to her classroom with one hand, considering him with her head cocked to one side.

“Well, thank you anyway. I’ll see you around, Mr Jones,” she says, running her tongue along her front teeth as she smirks again.

Then she’s gone, disappearing into her classroom. Killian turns to the wall and knocks his head into it lightly because he’s such a bloody prat. A passing caretaker just pats him on the shoulder sympathetically.


End file.
